


Crossing the Line

by worddancer



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, Drinking, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Other, back story, because why not, deaf clint bartion, how clint came to shield, sniper clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 18:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16331159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worddancer/pseuds/worddancer
Summary: His first sniper mission was as black as white as holding a gun could get. His unit had a opp escorting civilians to a refugee camp. Protection. They had several snipers lining the route- “bird's eye view”- his CO’s had said. Even if they never fired a shot they could see the whole thing laid out. If something went wrong they’d know.





	Crossing the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Not attached to any work in anyway I hit a writing block so I'm finishing a bunch of half done fan fics so I don't have to focus on my original work

It was almost laughable how easy it was to cross the line. After the circus, after the shit show that was his childhood, and his brother, the army seemed like the best idea. Trick shooting with a bow and arrow turned into a nest and a sniper rifle on his back.

He’d been so cocky. He showed off to his CO, after the first few days a gun wasn’t much different than his bow. He still preferred his bow though. He was good though- one of the best in the world. He knew that. He couldn’t be prepared for what the military would do with that. He was barely 20 years old. He was just out of juvie for refusing to participate in a robbery and for refusing to give his brother up to the questioning police. Military took him- no one else would and he needed somewhere to go.

He’d tried living on the streets once, that’s how he ended up in the circus. The circus is how his brother got talked into trying to rob a jewelry store in one of the towns they hit. His brother is what landed him in juvie. He had no desire to be on the street again. Not when he had other options.

His first sniper mission was as black as white as holding a gun could get. His unit had a opp escorting civilians to a refugee camp. Protection. They had several snipers lining the route- “bird's eye view”- his CO’s had said. Even if they never fired a shot they could see the whole thing laid out. If something went wrong they’d know.

Nothing went wrong the first time.

Or the second.

Or even the third.

It wasn’t until the seventh or eighth mission- fifteen years later he couldn’t remember. He did remember how everything went tits up. He did remember getting a call from the sniper up the road from him. His buddy said it looked like enemies were coming in and would meet the convoy closest to him. He adjusted his angle and through his binoculars. He could see the dust cloud of the civilian convoy in the distance. Behind them he saw more dust. More than his people.

He slowed his breathing and looked through his binoculars, he didn’t have a spotter, this wasn’t a sniper mission per say. This was a make sure our guys don’t die mission. Like hunting. He could see where the enemy would meet the civilians. He couldn’t see how many of them there were. Still he knew he could stop them. He wasn’t the best for no reason.

He killed five men that day. Men who pointed guns at children. Men who pointed guns at parents who had gone far too many days without food so their kids could eat. Parents who protected their children as best they could.

He slowed his breathing, lined up his shots and pulled the trigger.

He puked everything but his stomach lining half an hour after he pulled the trigger the last time. In the moment it hadn’t felt any different than the times when Barney and him had to kill deer, rabbits or squirrels to fill the pot. It wasn’t until he met back up with his unit, saw the bodies bleeding out on the dry desert grass, that he realized he took lives. Humans that had been breathing until he pulled his trigger.

He puked when he realized he’d do it again. He’d protect those families again. He’d kill again. That made him retch.

The next time he pulled the trigger was easier. Same situation- protection.

He did protection for over a year. He didn’t know he was paying his dues. He didn’t know there were people watching him. He hiked up several more kills. He stopped puking after the third time.

He stopped drinking after the fifth.

After the sixth or maybe it was the seventh he didn’t stay awake for two days after the kill. He went to bed at his normal time, or as normal as he ever did. He didn’t know he was being watched.

After his ninth time killing for the military, killing for protection, that he got a promotion.

His rank got kicked up, his pay got kicked up, his clearance got kicked up.

He was going to kill for protection still but it would be people who had already harmed others.

Traffickers, terrorists. Bad guys.

The line started to blur. Before when he pulled the trigger he saw all the harm that the people on the other end of his scope would cause. He saw them in action. He saw them pointing guns at children, at parents that starved themselves to feed their kids, at grandmothers who needed canes to walk or at his unit, his friends, his partners. He hadn’t been sent out to kill, it had been an unfortunate reality he was prepared to deal with if the need arose.

This was different, this was a specific mission. Kill a man who did a lot of bad things, hurt a lot of people.

Looking back he could see how they manipulated him. His first ordered kill was a trafficker. Drugs, guns you name it- he sold it. Including children. Kids nobody would miss but somebody, somewhere was willing to pay a lot of money to get. He’d been selling some really big guns to some really bad people. He caused a lot of pain and a lot of death.

The military didn’t give choices. They gave him a choice here.

Clint had been a kid nobody would have missed once upon a time.

That’s what got him to say yes- the idea that he could say no. When he looked back at his time in the military he wondered if he really did have a choice. After all he hadn’t tried to say no.

He blurred the lines more and more. The missions he was sent on became grayer and grayer.

It had been like wading into a pool. His official military record was boring and blank. Nothing special. Just some hick from Iowa who was good at following orders. His unofficial record on the other hand had him all over the world, each opp getting more and more black lines in a file.

Than a fun explosion left him mostly deaf. Couldn’t hear a damn thing without hearing aids.

He was the best sniper in the fucking world and the military didn’t want him. They had no use for a deaf guy. They didn’t want to admit that he and a few others like him existed. They kicked him to the street, handed him some discharge papers and told him good luck. He was barely able to keep his gun. After fifteen years he didn’t know how to sleep without some weapon beside him.

He didn’t know how to sleep in a bed.

The Army dropped him off in New York and waved good bye.

He spent six months learning sign language. He spent three months finding hearing aids. He didn’t like them, they were uncomfortable but it was better than people being able to sneak up on him.

He started drinking again.

He started sleeping in a bed a few nights a week again. Nights when the nightmares came he ended up with a ratty blanket on the floor. Those nights he drank even more.

The death that bathed the last fifteen years of his life finally started catching up to him. It felt like every death he shoved out of his mind came back to haunt him all at once. The booze helped the nightmares. Or at least helped him pass out so he didn’t remember the nightmares.

He had a pattern. Leave his shit hole of an apartment, stock up on booze, drink his way into sleep, clean up in the morning and pretend it hadn’t happened. He had stashed enough of his payments over the fifteen years that he could afford to survive without working. He'd been a circus freak with no family to send money back too. What the fuck else was he going to do with each pay increase?

Who wanted to hire the deaf guy with a blank military record and a drinking problem anyway?

He stayed liked that for another six months. Fifteen months after leaving the military and all he had to show for it was a pile of empty bottles and uncomfortable hearing aids.

One day- he’d lost track- he went back to refill his liquor supply. Whiskey, always whiskey. His father had drank rum before he laid into his mother, brother and himself. Tequila was for Mexico and spring break and vodka tasted like shit. He drank whiskey, always in a glass and never from the bottle.

He could lie and say he wasn’t his father if he drank from a glass.

He wasn’t his father though. There was a difference between needing to drink and preferring to drink instead of dealing with his memories. He was toeing that line. He could feel it. Another month and he’d spill over that cliff. The desire to forget would be drowned out by the shakes of withdrawal.

He wasn’t there yet, but he was close. His brain was already rewiring itself to expect the booze. Soon it would demand it.

That night he hadn’t even bothered to put in his hearing aids. After fifteen months he’d grown careless. Nobody knew he existed, therefore nobody cared.

There was a time when he thought the military cared.

He was getting used to being wrong.

The fact that he wasn’t wearing his hearing aids didn’t forgive the fact he didn’t see the man sitting at his table. He was deaf, not blind. He still didn’t see him until the suit flicked on the light. Clint still reacted instantly. He had the gun from the silverware drawer in his hand before his eyes had time to fully adjust.

The suit raised his hands and opened his jacket to show he was unarmed.

“My name is Phil Coulson.” the man signed, “I work for the government and I want to talk to you.”

“Why?” Clint demanded.

“We want you to use your skills, help keep the world safe.” Phil signed.

“I did that already, lost my hearing. Military didn’t want me anymore.” Clint said not lowering his gun.

“I’m not the military Mr. Barton.” Phil signed, “I’m from S.H.I.E.L.D. and I just want to talk.”

“Fine, I’ll listen. Just let me grab my ears.” Clint said as he reached for his hearing aids on the table. He slipped the uncomfortable devices into his ears and flicked them on. As always noise flooded his ears, the static of ambient noise almost overpowering the things he DID want to hear. He quickly adjusted volume, bringing the static down so he could hopefully hear what the agent had to say.

“As I said Mr. Barton,” Phil began as he continued to sign. Clint was grateful for the respect. Most people seemed to think the hearing aids meant he could magically hear everything. Whoever this S.H.I.E.L.D was they already treated him with more respect than anyone since he got out. He'd tried going to the VA meetings at first but the idea they had funding for an interpreter was a fucking joke. Plus the fucking guy running the group sessions never listed when Clint asked the guy to look at him when talking so he could read lips and listen.

“I am from S.H.I.E.L.D, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. I’m here to offer you a job.”

“I’ve never heard of you.” Clint said keeping his hand near the gun on the table.

“Well we’ve heard of you.” Phil told him as the agent pulled a file from a briefcase, “100 confirmed kills on targeted missions and the same on standard protection missions. Olympic level sniper and beyond that with a bow. Fifteen years in the military, one year in training, two years in the Middle East on protection missions and twelve years traveling the world for specialized missions primarily in the Middle East or former Soviet Union. You helped plan and coordinate several of those missions. You speak Russian, Urdu, Farsi fluently and are passable in Punjabi. The only civilian casualties on your record were the fault of poor mission planning by others, enemy or situational changes that couldn’t have been accounted for- none the result of your direct actions. Your record is impressive. Not to mention your unique background with the circus.”

“So you want me to kill for you now?” Clint asked not bothering to hide the cynicism that crawled into his voice.

“Mr. Barton we want you to spy for us. Gather information that will protect your country.”

“And you want me to kill for you.”

“Yes, if needed we would want you to eliminate threats.”

“No. I’m done being a hired gun.”

“So you’re going to slowly turn into an alcoholic and waste your skills away?” Phil asked. Clint had to admire how his clam mask didn’t once slip away. He could recognize a man who’s been trained to be forgettable.

“Better than being a pointed gun.” Clint stood from his chair taking his gun with him. He grabbed two low glasses from the cupboard and handed one off to Phil. He poured them each a generous two fingers of whiskey.

“What if you got to pick the direction we pointed you in?” Phil took a slow swallow of the whiskey.

“Military said something similar, except you don’t really get to tell the brass no.” Clint followed suit and drank from his own glass while he savored the burn that slid slowly down his throat and settled in his stomach.

“You’ll work directly under me and I promise you will have full veto power on any kill orders.” Phil promised.

“What if I want out?” Clint said looking around his shitty apartment. The kitchen ceiling had a mold stain that seemed to grow daily, the bathroom had a matching stain sliding down the wall, the floor boards creaked with every step and the walls were so thin he bet money if he had his hearing left he’d hear his neighbor yell at her kid every night. Thing was, as crappy as the place was it was his. Not the military’s, not a crash pad for him to lay low in until his next mission, it was his.

“If you want out you’re out, after signing some pretty strict NDA’s that is.” Phil said pouring them both more whiskey, “You’re heading toward rock bottom anyway, come check S.H.I.E.L.D out. If nothing else it’s a pit stop before you crash and burn, although that would be a waste.”

“Would it be?” Clint asked.

“Yes, it would be. The Army is full of idiots who don’t know what they have or how to use it. S.H.I.E.L.D is different.”

Surprisingly it was different. It was still a slightly shady, morally questionable job but at least it was honest. He knew what he was doing and who was giving the orders. He didn’t always like Nick Fury but he did respect the man. Phil became a close friend and trusted adviser. He still killed, he had no illusions about what he was. Still he didn't blindly follow orders anymore.

Clint ended up purchasing the run down apartment he lived in for for fifteen months before Phil came knocking on his door. If anything else the little place in Bed Stuy gave him somewhere to run too. Eventually he got a dog. Eventually he got Natasha. Eventually he became an Avenger.

Eventually he stopped crossing lines and started drawing them.


End file.
